February 6th Was Sámi National Day

One small kindness, in one small moment led to such a marvelous transformation.

Vox

Birds have co-opted our anti-bird weapons in a genius counterattack

Humans install spikes so birds will go away. Birds steal them and do this instead.

Humans are so cute. They think they can outsmart birds. They place nasty metal spikes on rooftops and ledges to prevent birds from nesting there.

It’s a classic human trick known in urban design as “evil architecture”: designing a place in a way that’s meant to deter others. Think of the city benches you see segmented by bars to stop homeless people sleeping there.

But birds are genius rebels. Not only are they undeterred by evil architecture, they actually use it to their advantage, according to a new Dutch study published in the journal Deinsea.

Crows and magpies, it turns out, are learning to rip strips of anti-bird spikes off of buildings and use them to build their nests. It’s an incredible addition to the growing body of evidence about the intelligence of birds, so wrongly maligned as stupid that “bird-brained” is still commonly used as an insult...

Magpies also use anti-bird spikes for their nests. In 2021, a hospital patient in Antwerp, Belgium, looked out the window and noticed a huge magpie’s nest in a tree in the courtyard. Biologist Auke-Florian Hiemstra of Leiden-based Naturalis Biodiversity Center, one of the study’s authors, went to collect the nest and found that it was made out of 50 meters of anti-bird strips, containing no fewer than 1,500 metal spikes.

Hiemstra describes the magpie nest as “an impregnable fortress.”

Pictured: A huge magpie nest made out of 1,500 metal spikes.

Magpies are known to build roofs over their nests to prevent other birds from stealing their eggs and young. Usually, they scrounge around in nature for thorny plants or spiky branches to form the roof. But city birds don’t need to search for the perfect branch — they can just use the anti-bird spikes that humans have so kindly put at their disposal.

“The magpies appear to be using the pins exactly the same way we do: to keep other birds away from their nest,” Hiemstra said.

Another urban magpie nest, this one from Scotland, really shows off the roof-building tactic:

Pictured: A nest from Scotland shows how urban magpies are using anti-bird spikes to construct a roof meant to protect their young and eggs from predators.

Birds had already been spotted using upward-pointing anti-bird spikes as foundations for nests. In 2016, the so-called Parkdale Pigeon became Twitter-famous for refusing to give up when humans removed her first nest and installed spikes on her chosen nesting site, the top of an LCD monitor on a subway platform in Melbourne. The avian architect rebelled and built an even better home there, using the spikes as a foundation to hold her nest more securely in place.

...Hiemstra’s study is the first to show that birds, adapting to city life, are learning to seek out and use our anti-bird spikes as their nesting material. Pretty badass, right?

The genius of birds — and other animals we underestimate

It’s a well-established fact that many bird species are highly intelligent. Members of the corvid family, which includes crows and magpies, are especially renowned for their smarts. Crows can solve complex puzzles, while magpies can pass the “mirror test” — the classic test that scientists use to determine if a species is self-aware.

Studies show that some birds have evolved cognitive skills similar to our own: They have amazing memories, remembering for months the thousands of different hiding places where they’ve stashed seeds, and they use their own experiences to predict the behavior of other birds, suggesting they’ve got some theory of mind.

And, as author Jennifer Ackerman details in The Genius of Birds, birds are brilliant at using tools. Black palm cockatoos use twigs as drumsticks, tapping out a beat on a tree trunk to get a female’s attention. Jays use sticks as spears to attack other birds...

Birds have also been known to use human tools to their advantage. When carrion crows want to crack a walnut, for example, they position the nut on a busy road, wait for a passing car to crush the shell, then swoop down to collect the nut and eat it. This behavior has been recorded several times in Japanese crows.

But what’s unique about Hiemstra’s study is that it shows birds using human tools, specifically designed to thwart birds’ plans, in order to thwart our plans instead. We humans try to keep birds away with spikes, and the birds — ingenious rebels that they are — retort: Thanks, humans!

-via Vox, July 26, 2023

Nuts and Dolts Week 2023 - Day 7 - First Kiss

Hey peeps!

So hey! That was one hell of a Nuts & Dolts Week! Huge props to everyone who participated in this lovely week, because goddammit I desperately needed the serotonin

(Also sorry I couldn’t do all the prompts! I still had some timing issues and couldn’t get everything done when I wanted it to be. Sorry!!)

Anyhoo, here we are! First kiss

I really wanted this piece to be special, so I went ham on absolutely everything

I concepted Vacuo Outfits! I nitpicked every little pose/position! I made sure the facial expressions were perfect! I had really fun lighting! Background could be better but who cares! Let these girls be happy dammit!!

So yeah!

Happy Nuts and Dolts Week, and I can’t wait for next year!

I straight up forgot I had this in my files...

From like February.

(It's a ref from Sailor Moon. I'd add the clip but it won't let me)

I drew & printed a bunch of mini Xions

they're inspired by Tim Peacock’s comic Hole.

Do you use a service to print your books & buttons, or do you press and collate them yourself? I really love your work and I'm curious how you approach self-publishing as a full-time independent illustrator!

Hi there! Thank you so much for asking!

All of my buttons are made via a manufacturer! They're often very cheap to have made. I 100% recommend this merch resource list created by Lily Grace if you're looking to get merch made and need a place to start! :) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mk9wl0LiYNStnXxwHAE6hd4-uzDMhfvnHsh819KlQeA/edit?gid=0#gid=0

As for books, I'm currently using https://www.grekoprinting-comixwellspring.com/ as a printer for my one little soriku book. I'm still a novice when it comes to physical print, but its a really nice option to have when selling at conventions! If you're considering printing an art book or comic book, I'd recommend having a digital option for accessibility, too! ^^

Making your own merch is still totally a valid option, if you're willing to invest in the resources to do that! There's plenty of good reasons to do stuff in house. I personally prefer to not have the extra workload because I'm already so bad about dragging my feet on the simplest of work tasks LOL!

WELCOME! to Fridge’s tumbling zone—

if you find my real name through another profile, still call me Fridge please and thanks 🙏 (it's what I go by in fandom spaces, and 90% likely how you "know" me)

I’m graduating art school this spring and majoring in illustration, if all goes as planned! I have a website for my work and a Redbubble for buying a few of my designs. I animate and make prints as well.

I am cake n' aces and apparently my brain is wired differently!

Interests :

The main fan stuff I reblog is 👑 Kingdom Hearts, 🥀 RWBY, and sometimes ❄️ Frozen.

I am teeth-and-nails obsessed about Xion (KH) and Penny Polendina (RWBY)

I also like

🦎 geckos, especially New Caledonian geckos! I'm making a comic about them! My crestie OC Ves is basically my fursona at this point, and he has his own young readers' adventure story incorporating my interest in their ecosystem

🌟Flight Rising, the dragon petsite into which I pour my conlang hobby. I sell chibi stickers of all breeds chronologically released up to 2023, am in the Light flight, and Aethers are my favorite breeds.

🎧Coldplay! They are my favorite band, I know their discography extensively. My favorite album is X&Y -- though my favorite songs are probably from A Rush of Blood to the Head)

🦉 Guardians of Ga’Hoole… aside from the books being fantastic by their own merit, I have 100%ed the shovelware Wii game to the ends of the earth and back, and I still have the Soren Christmas ornament / Soren and Gylfie Beanie Babies from when I was a kid

💎 Spyro the Dragon-- I was introduced on the ones where Spyro is in a beat-em-up genre, but I love my spunky skateboarding little collectathon dragons. (Legend of Spyro -> Skylanders -> Reignited)

Tags:

I love reading tags and comments on my work btw. If you’ve left a message I’ve probably read it!!

I'm kinda inconsistent with my tags— only recently started using them to make things searchable on my blog

#fridge’s art for.... guess

#fridgefanatic is for all other original posts

for fictional characters, if they have a name that is common, I usually add fandom specifiers in the tag for their name

If I think of anything else I'll add it! (And of course, feel free to ask "About Me" questions)

On April 16th 2025 the US federal government has proposed to change the interpretation of the endangered species act so that it no longer protects habitat.

This is open for public comment until the end of May 19th. Please comment and make your voice heard.

Wildlife need their habitat. If the ESA redefines harm so that habitat is no longer protected, the implications for wildlife would be catastrophic.